Parts of this Russell Street strip mall were still smoldering Monday afternoon, after more than 60 firefighters from 10 different towns worked through the night trying to extinguish it.

“As you can see, there’s quite a lot of debris. The fire was burning, burning for a long time & burning very hot, so it was a lot of debris in there. There’s always gonna be hot spots, embers in there that we can’t see, especially now with it drying out and the winds picking up,” explains Amherst Fire Asst.. Chief Lindsay Stromgren.

Just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday, a fire that investigators think started in a laundromat tore through the rest of the mall, which housed businesses and homes.

Everyone who was there was evacuated, along with those who were staying in a nearby hotel.

“It was busy. They were moving all the ladder trucks around and everything. It was just going,” adds Dawn Schabacker of Amherst.

Still, investigators carefully comb through the debris, Trying to trace the origins of the blaze.

51:57 really we’re just looking at walls, particularly blocked walls, but any walls just for anything that looks like it may fall over. There’s hvac heavy ac units from the roof that may come down, those are the main concerns. Wev’e shut off electricity to the building, gas, water, basically it’s just a fall hazard now.

One firefighter was injured, but is expected to be okay.

This part of Russell Street was closed earlier, but has since reopened, but you’ll still see fire crews still here through the night, just in case any more flare-ups occur.

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